Soo Greyhounds have a better chance of being in the 2021 Memorial Cup tournament than they do of winning next spring’s Ontario Hockey League championship. To be sure, the Greyhounds have to beat out only one team — the Oshawa Generals — to gain automatic entry into the 2021 national championship event.

Saginaw Spirit general manager Dave Drinkill has started the Ontario Hockey League trade season with a bargain pickup.

Pacey Schlueting

Drinkill has obtained 2002 birth year defenseman Pacey Schlueting from the North Bay Battalion for a fourth round draft pick in 2024 and a 12th round pick in 2023.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Schlueting was a first round pick of the Battalion, ninth overall, at the 2018 OHL priority selections draft from his hometown North Bay Trappers of the Great North Midget Hockey League.

Next, it is the jersey of the London Knights that Mason Chitaroni wants to wear.

That’s because Chitaroni is a plum prospect of the Knights, who took the 5-foot-10, 150-pound defender in the fifth round, 99th overall, at this year’s Ontario Hockey League priority selections draft from the Soo Jr. Greyhounds of the Great North Midget Hockey League.

“I want to show London that they made the right choice in drafting me,” the 15-year old youngster relayed to Hockey News North.

When a team has been at the bottom of the standings, it figures that there is no place to go but up.

Two years ago, the 2018-2019 season, it was the Kingston Frontenacs who finished in last place in the 20-team Ontario Hockey League. And this past season, the 2019-2020 campaign, it was the North Bay Battalion which had the dubious distinction of having the worst record in the OHL.

Soo Thunderbirds of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League will have a new look coaching staff for the 2020-2021 season, Hockey News North has confirmed. And leading the way as the new bench boss of the T-Birds is a man who played the game at its highest level.

On a Kingston Frontenacs team that posted the worst overall record in the Ontario Hockey League over the past two seasons, it was their youngest goalie who had the best numbers of any puck stopper. By far.

General manager Darren Keily has a distant goal of bringing a long-awaited Ontario Hockey League championship to Kingston. So too does head coach Paul McFarland. But that may be much easier said than done considering the Kingston Frontenacs have never — ever — won an OHL title.

Fresh from their finest season in a franchise history that began in 2015, Flint Firebirds have added fuel to the future with the signing of two more players from the 2020 Ontario Hockey League priority selections draft.

It can be a time consuming job as a nightly gig that also includes morning and afternoon assignments on the weekend. But passion and perseverance lies within the pores of the average Ontario Hockey League scout.

It is destination unknown for Mason Chitaroni relative to the 2020-2021 hockey season. That is, the 15-year old defenseman with the world-class speed — he does not turn 16 until October 2 — could be playing in the Ontario Hockey League, the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League, or for any one of four teams in the Greater Ontario Jr. Hockey League when the 2020-2021 campaign gets going.

It took the Kingston Frontenacs less than two weeks to fill their vacant head coach position. And it will be a familiar face manning the bench in Kingston when the next Ontario Hockey League season begins.

Landon Deforge is not what one would call a big kid, standing in at 5-foot-8 and tipping the scales at 155 pounds. Nonetheless, the skilled, smart, speedy skater played a big role for the Timmins Majors of the Great North Midget Hockey League during the 2019-2020 season.

He is working out on his own, in the family basement and in the garage. He jogs alone through his neighbourhood — and thinks of the season ahead. A 2020 Ontario Hockey League priority selections draft pick of the London Knights, Mason Chitaroni has a vision of where he wants to be when training camp opens.

If I have an adopted home town, it is Windsor. I have family members who have lived there for 65 or so years — including some who still do. And next to the thousand or so Ontario Hockey League games that I have watched in Sault Ste. Marie over the years, I have probably taken in a couple of hundred more in Windsor.

The third overall pick at the 2020 Ontario Hockey League priority selections draft has opted for the Sarnia Sting over the Michigan State Spartans of the Division 1, National Collegiate Athletic Association.